Liberty in Mourning

Monday, February 03, 2003

No wonder they're doing all they can to destroy liberty, justice, and the American way of life

What scares right wingers to the bone?

By Mike Hersh

Jan 31, 2003, 12:11 PST

What scares right wingers to the bone? Freedom. Free speech. Free thoughts. Free people. Why? They feel insecure in an uncertain universe. Right wingers crave order and simplicity, and will impose these things where it is not and should never be.

Actual conservatives -- equally skeptical of over-concentrated power in religious, private AND government hands -- are few and far between in the current conservative "movement."

A recent a San Francisco Chronicle article by Marc Sandalow examines the current crop of right wing "conservatives" who attended the national Conservative Political Action Conference in a public display of right wing pathology. Sandalow describes Dick Cheney leading right wingers in mob hysteria reminiscent of the "Five Minute Hate" sessions depicted in Orwell's classic 1984. (snip)

....Sandalow noted that right wingers hate Hillary Clinton and often resort to infantile slogans in lieu of logic or facts. "'It takes a village to elect an idiot,' read one sign," from someone who confused New York State with a tiny hamlet. Other typically simple-minded mockery abounded as "'Save a tree -- eat a beaver,' proclaimed one group's bumper sticker, " and "'So you're a feminist. Isn't that cute,' read another."
Attendees bought "Democrats are evildoers," and "'Proud Member of the Right Wing Conspiracy' license plates." They sold each other "Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my gun" and "'End Global Whining' bumper stickers." Meanwhile, "One vendor was hawking a placard that twisted the "s" in Islam into a swastika, while another offered a bumper sticker proclaiming, "No Muslims -- No Terrorism."

Dissent threatens right wingers' fragile sense of security. They demand that everyone believes whatever they believe -- even if that belief changes at the whim of their superiors -- because. Well just because! And don't ask questions! They believe whatever their superiors tell them to believe, because their insecurity and fear of the unknown prevents them from defying tradition or thinking in new ways.
I'd say right wingers demand that everyone think whatever they think but right wingers don't think. They listen and obey. Free thinking threatens right wingers. It weakens their precarious hold on their make-believe world....(snip)

......Right wingers are stuck in time. In 1776 they attacked George Washington and supported King George III against valid criticisms from the patriots. Right wingers attack patriots who make valid criticisms against George W. Bush today.
In 1776 they attacked Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, and right wingers still oppose reforms which protect and invigorate capitalism today. This includes anti-trust, fair trade practices, SEC regulations, and other protections for consumers, investors, workers and the environment which all keep the economy and society healthy and growing. (more)

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So here you have it; right wingers hate what patriotic Americans love: freedom, democracy, and dissent. They're the traitors posing as patriots who falsely accuse patriots of being unpatriotic because real patriots refuse to follow blindly the traitors in power.

Granny D Turns 93 -- Happy Birthday Granny!

My family belongs to a group of families who, together, provide for the annual income of a local farmer, in exchange for the food he produces. It is an organic operation, which not only means that dangerous chemicals are kept out of the foods, but also out of the soil and the water that flows eventually into the rivers and seas.
How we live shapes the entire world. I am no angel. I buy clothing that is a bargain and I look at the tag with guilt if it is from some faraway place where the workers may be abused. My part of New England used to be a great textile center, so I also care about the fact that my purchasing may take jobs from my neighbors. .....When we look at Mr. Bush and his war machine, and his rising campaign against our own freedoms and civil rights, we must think of it all as a mental illness that has come over the American mind. It is our illness.
Yes, we must stop this war. We must stop this attack on our Bill of Rights. But we are bailing out our flooding boat with our straw hats if we do not look to the cause of this insanity.

...I know I will be in jail before Mr. Bush is out of the White House. I know some of you will, too. I know I will give my all to stop this unwarranted invasion of the world by this disturbed man and his disturbed friends. I urge you to fight as well. I urge you to go to the peace march in New York City on Feb. 15 and be a part of the largest American uprising in modern history.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Countless clues left investigators with few answers as they probed what caused the breakup of space shuttle Columbia after the deadly disaster spewed debris across hundreds of miles.

In addition to examining the wreckage, NASA was analyzing transmissions from the crew, records from the shuttle's sensors and data from military, government and commercial satellites....

....Just a little over a minute into Columbia's launch on Jan. 16, a chunk of insulating foam peeled away from the external fuel tank and smacked into the left wing, which like the rest of the shuttle is covered with tiles to protect the ship from the extreme heat of re-entry into the atmosphere.

.....Why is it that whenever someone dies such a tragic death, Bush and Mugave somehow wind up benefiting? Something just doesn't sit right when one man prospers at the expense of the lives of others :-o

It's appalling to hear the lengths Republicans will go to protect
their own ("Web site to counter GOP critics in 04", 1/18), even to
the point of shredding the Bill of Rights in the process. No
patriotic American who reads, "Iowa Republicans received an e-mail
Wednesday from the group asserting: 'Hardly a week or even a day will
go by without one or two Democrats somewhere in Iowa criticizing the
president. We must hold them accountable - and confront them' ",
would arrive at the conclusion that the Iowa Presidential Watch
respects the right of critics to question their anointed President,
who remarked only three times that it would be easier if this were a
dictatorship.

Are we living in America, or some Communist police state, where we
can be hauled off to jail for speaking out against our leaders? Do
Republicans really think they can get off scot-free with silencing
the voices of dissent? If so, I strongly suggest that Republicans
read their copy of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights,
unless they already used it for fireplace fodder.

Unless we're wearing blinders, we can accurately assert that hardly a
week, or even a day, goes by without a chorus of Republicans
somewhere in America acting as if criticism of the President were a
crime that must be severely punished instead of the Constitutionally
protected right it is.

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

HOW WE CAN OVERTURN THE USA PATRIOT ACT AND RESTORE DEMOCRACYdespite the fact the right wing owns the Supreme Court

The answer is simple: all we have to do is forget about hate crimes legislation and instead use anti-terrorist laws to bring criminals motivated by bigotry to justice--it's easier, the burden of proof is lower, and prosecutors have far more leeway. We can prosecute white supremacists suspected of burning crosses in black people's yards; neo-Nazis who allegedly paint swastikas on the doors of synagogues; Muslim bashers who deface mosques, Catholic and/or other Christian bashers who burn down churches; rogue cops who brutalize "suspects"; and even anti-abortion extremists who bomb abortion clinics, all under the USA PATRIOT act as terrorists.

Warning: this is a best-case scenario, and is likely to work only in liberal jurisdictions like California, New England, or the Pacific Northwest, where the judiciary tilts Democratic or left-wing Republican. Prosecutors would have an easy time "proving" guilt: secret evidence, hearsay, rumors, monitoring attorney-client conversations, and gossip would be admissible. Imagine a KKK (neo-Nazi) defendant not being allowed to face his black (Jewish) accuser--he'd be throwing a hissy fit! All this is perfectly legal under the USA PATRIOT act. Chances are, the defendant would be convicted in what amounts to a kangaroo court.

The only recourse the now-convicted terrorist would have to overturn his or her unjust conviction, based on evidence which would otherwise be inadmissible, would be to appeal the conviction to the appeals courts. If, let's say, the Ninth Circuit, overturns the conviction on the grounds that the USA PATRIOT act is unconstitional on its face, the entire act is null and void, and Ashcroft would be left sitting with egg on his face because he can't legally appeal an overturned criminal conviction to the Supreme Court. But, if the Appeals court lets stand the verdict, the defendant can take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, where five right-wing, fascist "Justices" sit on the bench, who apparently don't want right-wing domestic terrorists languishing in prison when they can be out terrorizing American minorities. Chances are, they'll overturn the USA PATRIOT act as unconstitutional not so much because it really is unconstitutional, but because who's rotting in prison because of the anti-terrorist laws. In other words, it's not you do, but who you are.

Yes, we can take advantage of conservatives' attitude of selective application of justice to restore democracy; we just have to know how to do it.

Thursday, October 24, 2002

Paul Begala Asks for Synonyns for "Liar"

Since it isn't polite to call a sitting pResident a liar--even one who was appointed by the Supreme Court, one can say he molds the facts to fit his agenda, or that he's too flexible with the truth to be trusted to state the facts accurately.

Paul Begala of CNN Crossfire asked his viewers to send in their euphemisms for "liar" so he could be polite to the Bushmaster-in-chief. If you have any choice words to submit, send them into

The entries poured in, especially from the Democratic Underground. Some of them include: Depressingly disingenuous, Republican, perjurer, fuzzy facts, truth enhancer, tall tale teller, stretches facts to fit his agenda (that's mine), lacking honesty, manipulator of truth, schlock broker, misundertruthinatior (good new word), selective use of carefully managed information, creates his own truths, creatively factual, unconstrained by facts, beats around the Bush, bearer of false witness, unburdened by reality, prevaricator, impostor, pretender, economizing with the facts, distorts the facts, speaks with forked tongue, undisclosed loquation, confabulator, four-flusher, and he never lets the facts get in the way of a good story.

He has earned some titles, some of which even Clinton's enemies wouldn't even put on him: The Texas Truth Twister, the Crawford Fact Rustler, The Disinformation pResident, the Truth Smearum, and......this takes First Prize....The Lone Star Executioner of Truth!

Neutral, my pig's eye! The Scalia "Fascist Five" have made a mockery of justice, truth, and the rule of law, and have rewritten the Constitution to suit Scalia's extremist agenda. "Judicial tyranny" is more accurate a term!

Former "Independent" Counsel Ken Starr has praised the super-repressive, anal-retentive Rehnquist Court as a paragon of judicial restraint, while chiding the "activist" Warren Court. Starr. He's only half right. While the Warren Court was a liberal activist court, the Rehnquist Court was no bastion of moderation, neutrality, equality, or judicial restraint, as Mr. Starr alleges ( ). Starr conveniently ignores the indisputable fact that these five bandits in robes that comprise the majority of the Supreme Court are conservative activist Justices, if you want to call them Justices, effectively subverting every piece of legislation intended to protect workers and small investors from corporate criminals; domestic violence victims from their tormentors; and people with mental retardation from the execution chamber, while sanctimoniously calling themselves "pro-life" (this just in: real pro-lifers don't relish in the death penalty--right-wing counterfeits do), just because they oppose abortion. Have you no consistency, hypocrites?! If those so-called "pro-life" conservatives were really pro-life, they wouldn't just fight like dogs to protect the lives of the unborn, but also they'd struggle to help protect the lives of those of us already walking the Earth!

Starr has nothing but contempt for the four more progressive members of the Supreme Court: Stevens, Souter, Breyer, and Bader-Ginsburg. Even though he offers some faint praise for Justice Breyer for "moving to the center" on some issues, he spews nothing but hatred for the other Supreme Court Heroes, calling them "forlorn liberals", as if standing up for the rights of the weak were some sort of a weakness, or even a crime. He also sneers that they're "irrelevant" (did I hear that somewhere, as from the Borg on Star Trek?), and even "marginalized." Who the hell does Starr think he is? But then again, he's the one who tried to bring down Clinton on bogus charges of "perjury" (telling the truth when Starr wanted a lie) and "obstruction of justice" (obstruction of partisan witch hunt).

Starr does sound like a male Ann Coulter with the way he rants and libels liberals, and he definitely can't afford to talk about liberal judges being "activists"; the right-wing extremists on the bench, especially Justice Scalia, practically wrote the book on judical activism, rewriting the Constitution to match his personal opinions--and he has the temerity to say he's a strict constructionist who practices judicial restraint. Translated into plain English, "strict constructionist" and "judicial restraint" are code words for "conservative judicial activism" and "judicial tyranny." Starr praises these tyrants, who admittedly say "the Constitution is what we say it is", to the skies, calling them the "Five Friends of Federalism." Five Friends, my kiester! Scalia's Gang of Five should be called the "Five Fiends of the Constitution", with what they did to President-in-Exile Al Gore! He has the gall to call the Fantastic Four (Stevens et al) the "Four Foes"--the Four Foes of Dictators if you ask me! What do you expect from the Grand Impeachment Inquisitor? Fairness?! I don't think so.

Mr. Starr is too flexible with the truth to be a credible opinion. He shouldn't benefit from a gender double standard. If professional ostracism due to ideological extremism to the point of dangerousness is good enough for Ann Coulter, it should be good enough for Ken Starr. He deserves to be severely punished, not rewarded, not only for his persecution of Clinton, but also for his fanatical, anti-democratic (small 'd'), Constitution-shredding views. For all we know, Bush may reward him for his fanaticism and nominate him for a bench on the Supreme Court. Should that happen--God forbid-- then I'll know for a fact that the rule of law has given way to the rule of the lawless. You can't find many more lawless than Starr!

Sunday, October 13, 2002

If You Abandon the Democrats, You'll Abandon the Constitution and We Will Lose Our Freedom Forever!

Don't Impose an Anti-War Litmus Test on Democrats--Not Now!

Now is not the time to impose an anti-war litmus test on Democrats, so Don't withhold your support, your money, or your vote just because they supported Bush's war resolution: do you really want radical conservatives to control ALL THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT, AND CENSOR THE MEDIA? They WILL rule unchecked if we abandon the Democrats, so let's not be childish. Calling our Democratic representatives "traitors" for voting for this resolution plays right into Republican hands. Be wise: put your anger aside, hold your nose, and get to the polls. STAYING HOME IS NOT AN OPTION!!

Here's what's really at stake: either we keep our constitutional republic, or we can live in fear under an totalitarian Republican dictatorship. If we lose our democracy and our liberties, we may never get them back!

So let's make America safe for Democracy! Vote--and vote Democratic this November 5! Vote as if your very life depends on it; because it does. You cannot afford to stay home.

Don't give in to the temptation of well-intentioned, but misguided, anti-war idealism by withholding your Democratic vote this November. You'll have fallen right into Karl Rove's divide-and-conquer trap if you either vote third party or not at all.

Despite your anger at many Democrats who voted for the ill-timed war resolution, we urge you not to punish them by withholding your support, your money, or your vote; one bad vote on their part does not make them a "sellout." Do you really want radical Confederate conservatives to kill freedom dead and rule this country with an iron fist? They will if we abandon the Democrats. And yes, they WILL shred the Constitution and rule unchecked if you stay home, so hold your nose and get to the polls! Staying home is NOT AN OPTION THIS NOVEMBER!

We have a choice: either we preserve our constitutional republic, or we'll live in fear under a totalitarian Republican dictatorship--controlling ALL THREE BRANCHES OF THE GOVERNMENT, AND TOTALLY CENSORING THE MEDIA, COMMUNIST STYLE--because we decided to cut off our noses to spite our faces.

Remember, if you don't vote--or if you vote Green--you are voting Republican; a vote for a Republican is a vote for a dictatorship; and a vote for a Democrat is a vote for the Constitution and for liberty and democracy!

So let's make America safe for Democracy! Vote--and vote Democratic this November 5! Vote as if your very life depends on it; because it does. You cannot afford to stay home.

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

Fast Track to An Opus Dei "Saint": Canonized By Fraudulent Means?

I am, as a Catholic, simultaneously appalled and astonished at the fact that a controversial figure like Jose Maria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, has been canonized so quickly, without the Church either verifying the authenticity of the miracles attributed to him (Opus Dei’s ‘fast track’ to sainthood), nor considering the objections of former members who've suffered spiritual abuse at his hands. Opus Dei Awareness Network details the objections, such as its cultlike practices, perversions of faith, and secrecy, which even conned His Holiness himself. The Pope, as heroic as he may be, does not seem to see through the ruse of OD; he just sees them as "conservative Catholics." Conservative, my pig's eye! They're not conservative! They're fundamentalists, and scary, demonic fundamentalists at that!!!

I smell a diabolical rat behind this controversial canonization; something just doesn't sit right, and that something is the presence of Opus Dei members directly pulling the strings of the Pope in order for the Pontiff not so much to do God's bidding, but really that of Opus Dei. I do not blame His Holiness in the least for his having been deceived by the machinations of some wolves in sheep's clothing.

How can a man be counted as a saint when in fact he demanded to be worshipped as if he were God? The life of Msgr. Escriva on Earth totally contradicted the humility Christ taught Christians in general and Catholics in particular. Yet given Msgr. Escriva's (he's no saint in my book) obsession with authoritarianism, misogyny, secrecy, deception, manipulation, and total control over its members, Opus Dei ought to change its name to Opus Diaboli (Work of the Devil).

Wednesday, October 02, 2002

ARI fLIEscher ADVOCATES ASSASSINATION OF SOVEREIGN LEADER

Do we have a murderer running this country? God forbid!

fLIEscher crosses the line with his offhanded remarks advocating the assassination of Sadaam Hussein, remarking, in his own words, that "The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less" than going to war", as reported in The Washington Post. What makes matters worse, he is speaking for the entire Bush regime -- and advocating the assassination of a sovereign leader amounts to an impeachable offense in my book.

Enemy or no enemy, it is a crime in the United States -- a felony punishable by life in prison without parole -- to conspire to kill a foreign leader in a foreign country. No exceptions are made for press secretaries; therefore, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, in my opinion, belongs in jail. No one is above the law--not even the President, and yes, the President should be held to a higher standard of conduct.

Remember the way the conservative pundits taunted former President Clinton by spouting the lines, "no one is above the law; not even the President" and "the President should be held to a higher standard"? Well, the very words they used to try to bring down Clinton -- for imagined "crimes" which harmed only himself and his family -- will be used against Bush -- for real crimes which are destroying not only the United States, but also the entire world. Americans will not let the Bushies and the Republicans get away with their stark hypocrisy, where they relentlessly persecuted Clinton by criminalizing personal indiscretions, while apparently allowing Bush to get off scot-free for crimes against the Constitution of the United States of America.